About

The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Department of Psychiatry is the product of a merger of three separate Harvard Departments of Psychiatry with different and complementary histories and orientations. In 1996, the departments of Beth Israel Hospital, grounded in a rich psychoanalytic tradition, and the Deaconess Hospital with a more biologic and public psychiatry focus, merged to form the BIDMC Department of Psychiatry. In January 2005, the Department incorporated the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (MMHC), which had developed an unparalleled reputation in American Psychiatry through its unique and complex coordination of public, private, and academic resources to treat patients with major mental illness and severe psychosocial disadvantage, and to train generations of psychiatric leaders. The details of this exciting new affiliation are currently being developed.

Psychiatry Department has a full range of clinical, educational, and research activities. It includes approximately 70 active faculty members, including eight full professors, six associate professors, twelve assistant professors, and 44 instructors. Additionally, more than one hundred faculty teach or supervise in various training programs affiliated with the Department. A multidisciplinary staff of nurses, psychologists, social workers, and mental health counselors work in a fully integrated manner with other members of the Department.

The department of Psychiatry, as an integral part of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, complements and enhances the medical center's mission of providing excellent clinical care. Consistent with that mission, the Psychiatric Department offers comprehensive services to patients, ranging in ages of early adults to seniors, serviced by the medical center and surrounding communities.

Our psychiatric services include a continuum of care that is integrated into the delivery of other clinical services in the medical center. Our services are built around the goals of humane and excellent care, easy access and patient choice. We particularly emphasize respect for each of our patients. Our staff collaborates closely with clinicians from other disciplines within the medical center, as well as providers from surrounding communities, in order to ensure seamless medical and psychiatric treatment within the same system of care.